Why US diplomats Witkoff and Rubio are now courting the Europeans

An arrangement on Ukraine may finally be on the cards – but, writes Mary Dejevsky, it raises the unedifying prospect of a discussion about Ukraine without Ukraine at the table

Are the Americans and the Europeans finally converging on a peace plan for Ukraine? Or was this week’s Paris meeting the prelude to an imminent parting of the ways?

The outcome, judging by the sparse statements produced by the two sides, can be read either way – although neither would seem to offer great hope of an early end to the war or of stronger support for Ukraine against Russia.

The first, suggested by the brief statement from the Elysee Palace soon afterwards, was that the Europeans and the Americans had found some common ground. Discussions, it said, had “focused mainly on the peace negotiations aimed at ending the Russian aggression in Ukraine”, and crucially went on: “building on the talks between the President of the Republic and President Trump, as well as on the work of the Coalition of the Willing, co-chaired by France and the United Kingdom...”

This was the closest the Americans and the Europeans had come even to hinting at any sort of cooperation on Ukraine policy, after pursuing almost diametrically opposite approaches since Donald Trump returned to power.

Indeed, for the best part of three months, since Donald Trump put out his first presidential phone call to President Putin, the European side had given every appearance of trying, if not to sabotage Donald Trump’s peace efforts, then to help Ukraine continue the war, rather than advance towards peace. To this extent, the Elysee statement appeared faintly promising, though not much more than that.

Even that degree of hope was soon dashed, however, by the statement issued by the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the next morning. He said that US patience with the two warring parties was running out and that the Americans could head for the door, unless there were clear signs that a Russia-Ukraine truce could be reached. “We need to determine very quickly now – and I'm talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable,” he said. And, if not, “then we're just going to move on”.

This would have the effect – although he did not spell this out – of handing responsibility for Ukraine’s future over to the Europeans. Such an eventuality is in part what the Europeans have been preparing for in what seems their succession of meetings, but equally what they have been trying to avoid. Their efforts had been designed to try to keep the US on board. Now, the United States seems to be warning that it has better things to do than sort out what it sees as a limited, European mess.

This is not what the Europeans would have wanted to hear. And it would be even less welcome to Ukraine’s President Zelensky, who has made no secret of his belief that the Europeans cannot replace the support given by the United States, despite their best intentions and efforts.

His only consolation, though how much of a consolation it really is, was confirmation from the White House – even as the Paris meeting was in progress – that a tough lend-lease deal on Ukraine’s mineral and energy wealth would be signed within the week. Does mortgaging its future to the US guarantee Ukraine some sort of US protection? And if so, for how much of Ukraine’s territory and for how long?

These are just a few of the questions that the Europeans are likely to be scrambling to find answers to in the matter of days the US appears to have set as its deadline for some progress towards a truce. But it leaves unclear whether the US warning is for real, in presaging an end to US peace efforts, or designed to concentrate Russian, Ukrainian – and European – minds. It may be that even the US negotiators in Paris do not know.

The meeting itself had seemed a strangely formless gathering, with President Macron in the chair, the US secretary of state, Rubio, and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff – neatly nicknamed “envoy for everything” by a BBC correspondent – visiting from Washington, as well as ministerial-level representatives from France, Germany (which is in the throes of finalising its new coalition), and the UK. Special mention was also made of the UK’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, who has been given somewhat contested credit for having advised President Zelensky on how to retrieve relations with Trump after the Oval Office debacle.

Such apparent lack of structure could be for better or worse. For better, because it could signify serious business over strict protocol. For worse, because it could mean that this meeting was more of an exploratory one-off, than a new beginning – although a follow-up meeting in London is planned for next week.

For there to be any hope for an imminent ceasefire a great deal has to change. Russia is currently behaving exactly as would be expected of the side holding the military advantage – trying to maximise its advances in anticipation of likely talks. Ukraine, for its part, insists that it would accept an unconditional ceasefire on all fronts, if only Russia did the same, even as it continues to launch attacks into Russia.

With both Western and Eastern Orthodox Easter falling this weekend, there might have been hopes for at least a pause in hostilities, but this prospect looks remote.

Nor will the Paris meeting necessarily presage any serious improvement in US-Europe relations – for all the bonhomie shown by Trump and the visiting Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, soon after the Paris meetings broke up. One of the most striking features of Trump’s already action-packed second term has been the sharp downgrading of relations with Europe – and that means the whole of Europe, from the UK, the special relationship notwithstanding, through the European Union, to Ukraine.

Rubio’s statement after the Paris meeting seems to bear out the re-ordering of US priorities, heralded by the US defence secretary’s warning in February and Vice President JD Vance’s anti-Europe broadside at the Munich Security Conference two days later. Since then, in almost every respect, the US and the Europeans have remained on different paths.

How much adjustment the Europeans are prepared to make may become clear after the planned follow-up meeting in London next week. But with Zelensky clearly distrusting Witkoff, and responding in very negative terms to the Paris meeting, a spectre is raised of possibly the worst outcome of all: of the Americans, the Russians, and now perhaps somewhat reluctantly the Europeans, coming together to decide the future of Ukraine without Ukraine.